Kalle Hägglund, owner of the publishing
house "Hägglunds förlag", published a
Swedish edition of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. The
German authorities managed to get the Swedish High
Court to forbid the publication on the copyright
grounds -- but not for long.

CopyReich:
Sweden

In
Sweden,Mein Kampf has been
published a number of times: Schildts
förlag (1934) Medéns (1941) Askild
& Kärnekull (1970) Hägglunds
förlag (1992)

In
1992, Hägglunds förlag had 10,000 copies
of an old translation printed. In 1994, the Free
State of Bavaria filed suit against Hägglund
for copyright infringement. Due to the gravity of
the case, the Swedish prosecutor ordered the
confiscation of the remaining 150 copies. On March
7, 1996, the trial was held at the Stockholm
municipal court. Three weeks later, on March 28,
the verdict was announced: By the court's
recognition of Bavaria's claims as valid,
Hägglund was found guilty of infringing on
Adolf Hitler's copyright.

The case was taken to a court of appeal (Svea
hovrätt), and on October 13, 1997 this upheld
the verdict
of the Stockholm municipal court. Hägglund was
prohibited under penalty of a fine of 1,000,000
Swedish kroners from continuing to publish
Mein Kampf in Sweden;
he was however granted leave to take the case
before the Swedish supreme court.

Finally, on December 21, 1998, the supreme court
delivered its ruling: Bavaria did not own
the rights to Adolf Hitler's works in Sweden, and
thus had no locus standi to bring a copyright
infringement lawsuit against Hägglund.
Bavaria's request for the remaining copies to be
destroyed was also denied, and the prohibition
against Hägglund continuing to publish
Mein Kampf under
penalty of a fine of 1,000,000 kroners was
removed.

Still, the supreme court found Hägglund
guilty of infringing upon a copyright belonging to
somebody, irrespective of who that owner
was, and thus upheld the ruling of the court of
appeal in this respect. Since 1982, according to
Article 59 of the Swedish Copyright Act, a public
prosecutor may take criminal action against
copyright infringement even when there is no
complaint from an injured party, if such an action
is called for "in the public interest".

This is an interesting twist, and it is as yet
unclear what this may mean in other cases of a
similar nature. The case of Bavaria vs.
Hägglund (up until 1995, before the first
trial) is described in detail by Hägglund's
defence attorney, Erik Göthe, in his
book Den vanliga
vägen (only in Swedish).

Related materials: For an article on
the above, "Mein Kampf banned" see
Folket i Bild no
10/1997 [Swedish
| English]
(this was before the Supreme court judgement in
December 1998).